glutinous rice with pork belly 五花肉糯米飯

I often prepare ingredients for cooking without deciding on what dish to make. Most of these ingredients requires the passage of time and are quite versatile on how you use them. Dried shitake mushroom and some other Asian dried food are some examples.

Few days ago I was running low on cooking ingredients in the refrigerator. I decide I would make something out of glutinous rice. I measured a cup of rice and let it soak overnight.

Like the saying goes, feast or famine. I found out that my order of 1/4 cow is ready for pickup the next day. All a sudden I found myself with this huge task of needing to process a lot of cow bones which I also picked up along with the beef. I never want to throw away perfectly good ingredients. I need to make something quick and easy with the rice. A new dish evolved from my improvisation.


For years I could not figure out the way to cook glutinous rice without creating a mess. Unless I used cooking vessels with nonstick coating the rice would stick to the pan, wok, or pot and I ended up burning the rice and waste some. Eventually it dawned on me that the secret is to cook the rice by itself and then assemble the final dish with ingredients that are cooked separately at the end.

For this the purpose made glutinous rice steamer from Southeast Asia making it a snap to cook glutinous rice.
this combination is from thailand - the top part (the straw hat) holds the rice is made of straws and there are other shapes

it is extremely easy to clean - just scoop out the cooked rice and immediately rinse with water

I started the steaming of the rice in the Thai steamer. I then remember I have a bit of steamed pork belly with taro 香芋扣肉 in the refrigerator. It would just be perfect to use it with the glutinous rice. All I need is just some other ingredients to accent the dish. I happen to have some shitake mushroom in the refrigerator too that has been cooked and seasoned. I diced the mushroom into small cubic bits for mixing into the rice.

When the rice is steamed I dug a hole in the middle and bury the steamed pork belly with taro 香芋扣肉 so they can be heated up too. I was careful so the sauce don't get onto the straw hat. No problem as there is very little liquid in the steamed pork belly with taro 香芋扣肉.
steam pork belly with taro 香芋扣肉

All I need now is some roasted peanuts and chopped scallions to assemble the dish. I roasted a batch of peanuts the night before as TV snacks. Both of these would be used to top the glutinous rice dish.

the finished dish - dark soy sauce is best for seasoning glutinous rice; it is thicker and the hint of sweetness really accentuate the sticky and yet toothsome rice

oh yes, there is also bits of the cooked long beans - with all these ingredients there is a symphony of textures and flavors; the tender fat of the pork belly 五花肉 provides just enough fat the rice needed

 another meal with the leftover